God's Three-Step Program: Adoption, Transfiguration, and Evangelization

“And he was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, conversing with him. While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud cast a shadow over them, then from the cloud came a voice that said, 'This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.'” Matthew 17:2-3.5

What a mysterious scene! Moses and Elijah coming to talk to Jesus, while He takes on a barely-recognizable appearance. And this reminds us of His baptism how? (We remember, of course, at His baptism, those same words: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”) It wasn't until I heard Patrick Madrid's insight that I really had any understanding of this event beyond its literal sense.

There are only a few denominations that have retained the sacrament of confirmation, and even the Orthodox churches usually administer it in unison with baptism, but here we see the Lord fulfilling in His own life the completion of His baptism as we do in confirmation. It is in baptism that we are united with Christ on the cross. Our sin is taken up by Him, and we are restored to the perfection of grace in which Adam was created. (We still bear the concupiscence that resulted from original sin – and inevitably leads to our own actual sin -- as a temporal consequence, but that's not really relevant at this point.) We become children and heirs of God and lay hold of our salvation.

But Jesus didn't command His disciples merely to baptize; “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20, emphasis added). When we are baptized, we have the knowledge of Christ that an infant has of its mother. It is by growing in knowledge that we mature in love. Christ, being God, lacked no knowledge, but for the sake of the disciples who witnessed this event, it was fitting that they saw Moses and Elijah with Him. So many times throughout the gospels, Jesus refers to “the law and the prophets”, and every time He does, it is in the fullest sense, because he knows them intimately, as typified here by Moses and Elijah.

Obviously, we cannot reach the fullness of understanding in our lifetimes. But we can commit ourselves totally to the Father, through Christ. We are baptized, often as infants, and become God's children. But, like an ungrateful child, like the prodigal son, we can give up the all the gifts we inherit simply by being a part of the family. At confirmation, we embrace our kinship, and vow to seek the fullest knowledge that will lead to the truest love. We avail ourselves of the gifts of the Spirit, ours by anointing, and become fit to teach.

The sky opens, and a voice is heard from above. But, the second time around, He has a little more to say. Did you miss it? “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to Him.”

Seat of Wisdom, intercede for us, that we may be engulfed by the gifts of the Holy Spirit. May His life in us blossom daily, that we may be equipped and fortified for the charge we have been given, to make disciples and teach them.